Essays of Travel

Stevenson Robert Louis

Description

Any reader who has spent some time with Robert Louis Stevenson's body of work won't be surprised to learn that the Scottish author was an inveterate traveler and world explorer from early adulthood. Later in life, the chronically ill author lived in locales around the globe in an attempt to find a home that was amenable to his ailing health. The collection Essays of Travel brings together some of Stevenson's finest essays, short memoirs, and other works that detail his thoughts on travel and foreign lands.

Sujets

• Travel writing

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 mai 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781775452669
• Langue: English

Extrait

ESSAYS OF TRAVEL
* * *
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
 
*

Essays of Travel First published in 1905 ISBN 978-1-775452-66-9 © 2011 The Floating Press While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
*
I - The Amateur Emigrant II - Cockermouth and Keswick III - An Autumn Effect IV - A Winter's Walk in Carrick and Galloway V - Forest Notes VI - A Mountain Town in France VII - Random Memories: Rosa Quo Locorum VIII - The Ideal House IX - Davos in Winter X - Health and Mountains XI - Alpine Diversions XII - The Stimulation of the Alps XIII - Roads XIV - On the Enjoyment of Unpleasant Places Endnotes
I - The Amateur Emigrant
*
ToROBERT ALAN MOWBRAY STEVENSON
Our friendship was not only founded before we were born by a community ofblood, but is in itself near as old as my life. It began with our earlyages, and, like a history, has been continued to the present time.Although we may not be old in the world, we are old to each other, havingso long been intimates. We are now widely separated, a great sea andcontinent intervening; but memory, like care, mounts into iron ships andrides post behind the horseman. Neither time nor space nor enmity canconquer old affection; and as I dedicate these sketches, it is not to youonly, but to all in the old country, that I send the greeting of myheart.
R.L.S.
1879.
THE SECOND CABIN
I first encountered my fellow-passengers on the Broomielaw in Glasgow.Thence we descended the Clyde in no familiar spirit, but looking askanceon each other as on possible enemies. A few Scandinavians, who hadalready grown acquainted on the North Sea, were friendly and voluble overtheir long pipes; but among English speakers distance and suspicionreigned supreme. The sun was soon overclouded, the wind freshened andgrew sharp as we continued to descend the widening estuary; and with thefalling temperature the gloom among the passengers increased. Two of thewomen wept. Any one who had come aboard might have supposed we were allabsconding from the law. There was scarce a word interchanged, and nocommon sentiment but that of cold united us, until at length, havingtouched at Greenock, a pointing arm and a rush to the starboard nowannounced that our ocean steamer was in sight. There she lay inmid-river, at the Tail of the Bank, her sea-signal flying: a wall ofbulwark, a street of white deck-houses, an aspiring forest of spars,larger than a church, and soon to be as populous as many an incorporatedtown in the land to which she was to bear us.
I was not, in truth, a steerage passenger. Although anxious to see theworst of emigrant life, I had some work to finish on the voyage, and wasadvised to go by the second cabin, where at least I should have a tableat command. The advice was excellent; but to understand the choice, andwhat I gained, some outline of the internal disposition of the ship willfirst be necessary. In her very nose is Steerage No. 1, down two pair ofstairs. A little abaft, another companion, labelled Steerage No. 2 and3, gives admission to three galleries, two running forward towardsSteerage No. 1, and the third aft towards the engines. The starboardforward gallery is the second cabin. Away abaft the engines and belowthe officers' cabins, to complete our survey of the vessel, there is yeta third nest of steerages, labelled 4 and 5. The second cabin, toreturn, is thus a modified oasis in the very heart of the steerages.Through the thin partition you can hear the steerage passengers beingsick, the rattle of tin dishes as they sit at meals, the varied accentsin which they converse, the crying of their children terrified by thisnew experience, or the clean flat smack of the parental hand inchastisement.
There are, however, many advantages for the inhabitant of this strip. Hedoes not require to bring his own bedding or dishes, but finds berths anda table completely if somewhat roughly furnished. He enjoys a distinctsuperiority in diet; but this, strange to say, differs not only ondifferent ships, but on the same ship according as her head is to theeast or west. In my own experience, the principal difference between ourtable and that of the true steerage passenger was the table itself, andthe crockery plates from which we ate. But lest I should show myselfungrateful, let me recapitulate every advantage. At breakfast we had achoice between tea and coffee for beverage; a choice not easy to make,the two were so surprisingly alike. I found that I could sleep after thecoffee and lay awake after the tea, which is proof conclusive of somechemical disparity; and even by the palate I could distinguish a smack ofsnuff in the former from a flavour of boiling and dish-cloths in thesecond. As a matter of fact, I have seen passengers, after many sips,still doubting which had been supplied them. In the way of eatables atthe same meal we were gloriously favoured; for in addition to porridge,which was common to all, we had Irish stew, sometimes a bit of fish, andsometimes rissoles. The dinner of soup, roast fresh beef, boiled saltjunk, and potatoes, was, I believe, exactly common to the steerage andthe second cabin; only I have heard it rumoured that our potatoes were ofa superior brand; and twice a week, on pudding-days, instead of duff, wehad a saddle-bag filled with currants under the name of a plum-pudding.At tea we were served with some broken meat from the saloon; sometimes inthe comparatively elegant form of spare patties or rissoles; but as ageneral thing mere chicken-bones and flakes of fish, neither hot norcold. If these were not the scrapings of plates their looks belied themsorely; yet we were all too hungry to be proud, and fell to theseleavings greedily. These, the bread, which was excellent, and the soupand porridge which were both good, formed my whole diet throughout thevoyage; so that except for the broken meat and the convenience of a tableI might as well have been in the steerage outright. Had they given meporridge again in the evening, I should have been perfectly contentedwith the fare. As it was, with a few biscuits and some whisky and waterbefore turning in, I kept my body going and my spirits up to the mark.
The last particular in which the second cabin passenger remarkably standsahead of his brother of the steerage is one altogether of sentiment. Inthe steerage there are males and females; in the second cabin ladies andgentlemen. For some time after I came aboard I thought I was only amale; but in the course of a voyage of discovery between decks, I came ona brass plate, and learned that I was still a gentleman. Nobody knew it,of course. I was lost in the crowd of males and females, and rigorouslyconfined to the same quarter of the deck. Who could tell whether Ihoused on the port or starboard side of steerage No. 2 and 3? And it wasonly there that my superiority became practical; everywhere else I wasincognito, moving among my inferiors with simplicity, not so much as aswagger to indicate that I was a gentleman after all, and had broken meatto tea. Still, I was like one with a patent of nobility in a drawer athome; and when I felt out of spirits I could go down and refresh myselfwith a look of that brass plate.
For all these advantages I paid but two guineas. Six guineas is thesteerage fare; eight that by the second cabin; and when you remember thatthe steerage passenger must supply bedding and dishes, and, in five casesout of ten, either brings some dainties with him, or privately pays thesteward for extra rations, the difference in price becomes almostnominal. Air comparatively fit to breathe, food comparatively varied,and the satisfaction of being still privately a gentleman, may thus behad almost for the asking. Two of my fellow-passengers in the secondcabin had already made the passage by the cheaper fare, and declared itwas an experiment not to be repeated. As I go on to tell about mysteerage friends, the reader will perceive that they were not alone intheir opinion. Out of ten with whom I was more or less intimate, I amsure not fewer than five vowed, if they returned, to travel second cabin;and all who had left their wives behind them assured me they would gowithout the comfort of their presence until they could afford to bringthem by saloon.
Our party in the second cabin was not perhaps the most interesting onboard. Perhaps even in the saloon there was as much good-will andcharacter. Yet it had some elements of curiosity. There was a mixedgroup of Swedes, Danes, and Norsemen, one of whom, generally known by thename of 'Johnny,' in spite of his own protests, greatly diverted us byhis clever, cross-country efforts to speak English, and became on thestrength of that an universal favourite—it takes so little in this worldof shipboard to create a popularity. There was, besides, a Scots mason,known from his favourite dish as 'Irish Stew,' three or four nondescriptScots, a fine young Irishman, O'Reilly, and a pair of young men whodeserve a special word of condemnation. One of them was Scots; the otherclaimed to be American; admitted, after some fencing, that he was born inEngland; and ultimately proved to be an Irishman born and nurtured, butashamed to own his country. He had a sister on board, whom he faithfullyneglected throughout the voyage, though she was not only sick, but muchhis senior, and had nursed and cared for him in childhood. In appearancehe was like an imbecile Henry the Third of France. The Scotsman, thoughperhaps as big an ass, was not so dead of heart; and I h